VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: June Squibb On Playing A 94-Year-Old Tom Cruise Sundance Favorite ‘Thelma’

In an exclusive uInterview, veteran actress June Squibb, 94, discusses her new film, Thelma, which premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival last week.

Thelma follows an aging widow of the same name who spends most of her time tending to her 20-something grandson, Daniel, played by Fred Hechinger (The White Lotus). When she receives a call from a scammer pretending to be Daniel, Thelma sends $10,000 in cash to a nearby P.O. box and embarks on an action-packed journey to retrieve her money.

Following the premiere of the film, Squibb received praise for her Tom Cruise-like abilities and shared that she did most of her own stunts. The film marked Squibb’s first leading role in the medium.

“It’s lovely that it’s happened, it’s happening late in my life but I am still new to a lot of people. I don’t think much about it if I’m being honest with you,” Squibb said about her first starring role. “I read the script and just thought, ‘This is something I want to do.’ I’ll tell you, I have gotten to the point where, if I don’t want to do it, I won’t… This was a brilliant script, with a woman I felt that I knew and really could love.”

Squibb said that the character of Thelma spoke to her.

“The fact that she was determined, that she was sure of herself enough to go on this journey, and that she would even think she could go on the journey in the first place,” she explained. “I like her strength, I guess that really appealed to me. As you get older, you feel that people look at you and think of you as a weak person, and in truth we are not. No matter what our bodies are doing at the time, we are not weak.”

When asked if there was a particular scene that stood out to her, Squibb mentioned filming in the cemetery with Hechinger.

“I think it said the most to me about who this woman was and the fact that she told him, ‘I’m not going to worry about you, you’re fine.’ He had all the doubts in his mind and instead of tearing into him, she said ‘I know you’ll be alright.’ I just love that.”

Thelma also featured the late Richard Roundtree in his last role. Squibb said that she was grateful to have gotten to work with Roundtree before he passed.

“I loved being on the scooter knowing that Richard, straight and strong, was behind me all the time,” Squibb recalled. “That was a joy, he was heaven. I adored him, we all did. I got to spend a lot of time with him.”

Squibb said that her hope for the audience is to have fun while watching the film, while also developing a new understanding of what it means to get older.

“People say to me, ‘How do you feel’ about aging, and I ignore it. I hope that people can look at [Thelma] and think, ‘Wow, 90-something doesn’t mean the end of the world.'”

Squibb’s career spans more than seven decades, which she attributes to her endurance.

“It is ridiculous that, at this stage in my life, I’m still working this much. It surprises me, even. But it’s wonderful. I think that it tells me that you can keep going.”